Gaza: British MPs demand tougher action over Israeli bombardment

Senior MPs and advisers call on Cameron and Miliband to speak out more forcefully against killing of Palestinian civilians

• Follow the latest Gaza developments in our live blog

The Guardian, Rowena Mason, political correspondent, Thursday 31 July 2014

A soldier carries a tank shell on to a Merkava tank inside southern Israel,
close to the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA

David Cameron and Ed Miliband have been urged by senior MPs within their own parties to demand more forcefully that Israel stops its bombardment of Gaza.

In a significant intervention, Margot James, a No 10 policy board adviser and parliamentary aide to William Hague, has written to the new foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, urging him to rethink the government's stance, calling Israel's actions disproportionate.

Stressing that she has been a firm supporter of Israel for many years, James wrote to Hammond: "I ask that the government rethinks policy towards the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The scale of suffering in Gaza is far too great, the loss of life, and particularly the lives of children and other vulnerable individuals, cannot be justified on the grounds of defence in proportion to the level of threat faced by Israel from Hamas."

So far, Cameron has stood up for Israel's right to defend itself and blamed Hamas for starting the conflict, while calling for an immediate ceasefire to end the bloodshed.

The former Northern Ireland minister Sir Peter Bottomley wrote to the chief whip, Michael Gove, criticising the "devastation and death" and arguing that most MPs in the centre of the Conservative party felt the same.

"We all know that Israel has the right to exist, we all know that the attacks on Israel should cease, we know that Israel's settlements and their treatment of Palestinians is provocative. That's the foundation. The issue now is if Israel is relying on other people to be silent, they'll go on with a lack of proportionality and the devastation and the death.

"Anyone who looks at the pictures of what's going on presently in Gaza must know that the Israelis know what they're doing and what they're doing is wrong," Bottomley told the BBC. "Many Israelis know it's wrong. [The prime minister Binyamin] Netanyahu may have support, but Israelis know that if you go killing people at this rate, the disregard for the life of Palestinians is going to show up in the world as a bad mark for Israel."

In contrast to the Conservatives, Labour opposes the invasion of Gaza.

Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "The growing number of Palestinian civilians being killed is rightly provoking international outrage, and the continuing incursion into Gaza risks further international isolation for Israel and further international condemnation of its actions."

However, Diane Abbott, a Labour MP and former shadow minister, said she would like to see Cameron, Miliband and the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, do more to put pressure on the Israelis to stop the shelling.

"Leaders of all the parties need to be a great deal more emphatic in their condemnation of what's happening in Gaza," she told the Guardian. "Public opinion in all quarters, including Margot James who has always supported Israel, is horrified about what is happening. There is increasingly a consensus among ordinary people that they want to see the British political leadership speak out more emphatically. Part of it is people trying to keep in step with America, but things have gone so far, British leadership have to be prepared now to question America's support for what Israel is doing."

Several other senior Labour MPs had tweeted about the issue. Jon Trickett, a shadow cabinet office minister, wrote: "My mothers [sic] family were Jewish but what's happening in Palestine is #NotInMyName." Sadiq Khan, the shadow justice secretary, quoted the words of the UN's Ban Ki-moon, who said shelling of a school in Gaza was "Outrageous, unjustifiable and demands accountability and justice".

The US said on Thursday that casualties in Gaza were "too high" and Israel needed to do more to protect civilian life. However, the Foreign Office position remained the same. A spokesman said: "The UK is deeply concerned about the current situation in Gaza and the tragic loss of life on all sides. The foreign secretary has been absolutely clear that there needs to be an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to help alleviate the appalling humanitarian situation. All our efforts must be focused on achieving that ceasefire. Demands to take a different tack will simply dilute attempts to secure that."

A Palestinian girl cries while receiving treatment for her injuries

 caused by an Israeli tank shelling at a UN school in Jebaliya

refugee camp, 30 July 2014. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP

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Mass DNA swap with Belgium may solve hundreds of crimes

DutchNews.nl, Thursday 31 July 2014

(NOS/ANP XTRA)

A ‘mass exchange’ of DNA profiles between the Netherlands and Belgium may have helped solve hundreds of crimes, Belgian media report on Thursday.

In total, 1,745 matches were found when crime scene DNA held in data banks in the two countries was compared. In 576 cases, DNA found at a crime scene in one country could be linked to someone who had been forced to give a sample in the other.

‘We do not know the person whose DNA was found at the site is the perpetrator, but it does give detectives new routes to follow and possible suspects,’ Jan De Kinder of the Belgian national criminology institute is quoted as saying by Het Laaste Nieuws.

Belgium will also soon make DNA exchanges with German and French DNA banks.

Since 2005, everyone convicted of a crime punishable by four years or more in jail in the Netherlands must give a dna sample. This is kept on the data base for 20 years.

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Turkish women defy deputy PM with laughter

Bülent Arinç said women should not laugh in public, prompting backlash and highlighting state of women's rights in Turkey

The Guardian, Constanze Letsch in Istanbul, Wednesday 30 July 2014

Bülent Arinç, Turkey's deputy prime minister. Photograph: Adem
Altan/AFP/Getty Images

Twitter in Turkey broke into a collective grin on Wednesday as hundreds of women posted pictures of themselves laughing.

They weren't just happy. They were smiling in defiance of the deputy prime minister, Bülent Arinç, who in a speech to mark Eid al-Fitr on Monday said women should not laugh in public.

"Chastity is so important. It's not just a word, it's an ornament [for women]," Arinç told a crowd celebrating the end of Ramadan in the city of Bursa in an address that decried "moral corruption" in Turkey. "A woman should be chaste. She should know the difference between public and private. She should not laugh in public."

On Wednesday thousands of women posted pictures of themselves laughing out loud, with the hashtags #direnkahkaha (resist laughter) and #direnkadin (resist woman) trending on Twitter.

Turkish men also took to social media to express their solidarity. "The men of a country in which women are not allowed to laugh are cowards", tweeted one user.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the main opposition presidential candidate running against current prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in next Sunday's elections, joined a chorus of male voices criticising Bülent Arinç's comment, tweeting: "More than anything else, our country needs women to smile and to hear everybody's laughter."

Other opposition figures pointed out that Arinç's comments highlighted the dismal state of women's rights in Turkey. Calling on people to protest against massive violence towards women at a demonstration next week, Melda Onur, an Istanbul MP for the main opposition Republican People's party, wrote on Twitter: "We would have left Arinç to his fantasies and wouldn't even have laughed about it, but while so many murders are being committed he makes [women] a target by stressing the need for chastity."

A 2009 report commissioned by the Prime Ministry Directorate on the Status of Women found that more than 40% of Turkey's female population have suffered domestic violence. More than 120 have been killed since the beginning of this year alone, mostly by their partners or other family members.

Mehtap Dogan of the Socialist Feminist Collective – who was among the women who posted pictures of herself laughing – said that Arinç's statements were not an isolated incident of misogyny.

"His words perfectly illustrate his and the [ruling] AK party's attitude towards women," she said. "In their eyes, women should not have any rights, they treat us like a separate species."

It was certainly not the first time the government of Erdogan – infamous for his admission that he did not believe in equality between men and women – has provoked outrage with discriminatory remarks.

Dogan added: "Using moralism to hide behind, they defend violence, rape, and sexism."

In 2012, when the government tried to massively curb the right to abortion, Ankara mayor Melih Gökcek said on public television: "Why should the child die if the mother is raped? The mother should die instead."

When women in an Anatolian town approached the visiting forestry minister in 2009, asking for work, he replied: "Isn't your housework enough?"

Asked by journalists to comment on the social media backlash, Arinç said his comment had been taken "out of context".

"From one and a half hours of my speech, some only heard what I said about women laughing in the street. What a disgusting, ugly and unfounded fabrication."

But he also said "I stand by my words", in reference to his wider speech, which he described as an effort to shine a light on the "degeneration in society". In an attempt to distance himself from his earlier statement, he said someone who would want to ban women from laughing in public "would have to be an idiot".

He also accused "certain stars" of "fake laughter": "These are all artificial laughs. In reality laughter brings relief and makes people happy. I think we are in need of that everywhere, but your laughs are fake. You all had your moments of fame, but when that eluded you tried to attract attention with alcohol and such fake laughter."

Arinç went on to slam women who "despite being married with kids go on vacation with their boyfriends" and those who "never miss the chance to wrap themselves around a dancing pole".

Turkish media has speculated that the latter comment was directed at Asena Erkin, wife of the Turkish Fenerbahçe footballer Caner Erkin, who had recently shared an Instagram picture of herself dancing around a pole with the comment: "When I see a dancing pole, I never miss the chance [to use it]."

He did not have to wait long for a renewed wave of mockery on social media. "There are politicians who imagine Turkey to be one big open-air orgy", Turgay Ogur tweeted. "But I swear, my neighbourhood Atasehir is quite an orderly place."

But for Mehtap Dogan, Bülent Arinç's statements this week were not simply a laughing matter: "The AKP government denies women their rights. They are sexist. We were not surprised by what was said this week, but we are really angry."

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"#Happiness is our people's right. We shouldn't be too hard on behaviors caused by joy." 29/6/2013
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) May 21, 2014

Dismantling Germany’s 275,000-tonne nuclear industry, piece by piece

Yahoo – AFP, Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Eyes fixed on a screen, joystick in hand, the operator of a remote-controlled saw painstakingly dismantles metal rods at one of Germany’s mothballed nuclear reactors.

Time-consuming and costly, the operation to methodically carve up the core of EnBW’s Obrigheim reactor in the country’s southwest is now more than half way through.

In total, 275,000 tonnes of machinery, pipes and other equipment that enabled the power station to operate for 37 years must be stripped down. Of that, almost one percent, or about 2,000 tonnes, is radioactive material.

Even as EnBW sees its days as a nuclear operator come to an end, it now envisions a future as an expert in nuclear scrapping.

Nuclear dismantling can prove to be a “new field of activity,” said company spokesman Ulrich Schroeder, at a time when countries including Switzerland and Italy have also decided to end their reliance on atomic energy.

“We now have a real competence in dismantling, managing and recycling waste,” said Schroeder.

Under Germany’s “Energiewende” or energy transition, a phased exit from nuclear power and embrace of green energy, the entire site is expected to be disassembled by 2025, two decades after it stopped producing nuclear energy.

“Every step is carried out manually, remotely,” site engineer Michael Hillmann told AFP at the control room of the power station nestled in the undulating Neckar valley.

What remains of the reactor is submerged under water in a room that hardly anyone enters, at least not without protective gear and not for more than 10 minutes at a time.

The pieces are mechanically removed to a separate “packaging” room where they are stored in yellow casks designed to safely hold radioactive waste.

- New inhabitants? -

Ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s centre-left government decided early last decade to phase out atomic power. The push was initially reversed by his conservative successor Chancellor Angela Merkel, who then revived it after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Dismantling the Obrigheim reactor began in 2008 following a long preparatory stage which involved various authorities painstakingly planning and okaying every step of the process down to the last detail.

Each piece that is cut away is carefully recorded while the work is carried out in a stipulated order, with the aim of leaving behind an entirely safe site.

One day the now empty offices, warehouses and even the huge dome that housed the reactor could even interest new inhabitants, said Manfred Moeller, the site’s operative manager.

EnBW, Germany’s third-biggest power supplier, is cutting its teeth with Obrigheim.

Like its competitors, the operator has to gradually shutter all its nuclear power stations and dismantle them following the government’s decision to turn its back on the energy source.

Two of the company’s four other reactors were halted soon after the Japanese accident, while the other two still have several years to run.

Of the total nine still operating in Germany, EnBW’s Neckarwestheim II reactor is set to be the very last to close by 2022.

Germany’s nuclear power operators finance the dismantling through provisions set aside over years.

EnBW has put on the side more than seven billion euros ($9.5 billion), its part in a total 30-billion-euro pot from Germany’s four operators.

The company predicts it will have dismantled all its reactors by the 2040s, but questions remains over where the radioactive waste will be permanently stored.

The issue of where to put the waste has split Germany since the 1980s, which saw large protests near temporary storage sites. The hunt for a permanent waste depot has been relaunched under Merkel. In the meanwhile, the waste is held at temporary sites.

“We must have the possibility to get rid of waste,” said Moeller. “That’s part and parcel of the energy transition.”

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EU imposes new sanctions in 'a strong warning' to Russia

Yahoo – AFP, Bryan McManus, with Dario Thuburn in Donetsk, 29 July 2014

A man videos a shell crater in Donetsk, on July 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Bulent Kilic)

Brussels (AFP) - After months of hesitation, the EU agreed Tuesday to impose economic sanctions against Russia, hoping this "strong warning" would make it change course in Ukraine as fighting intensified around cities held by pro-Russian rebels.

But at the same time the European Union told Moscow that should it reconsider its policy on Ukraine, the 28-nation bloc also could shift course, despite all the damage done.

The new measures impose restrictions on the finance, defence and energy sectors so as to increase the cost to Russia of its continued intervention in Ukraine.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin

 attends a meeting in his Novo-

Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, 

on July 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mikhail 

Klimentyev)

Notably, Russian state-owned banks will find access to European financial markets limited, meaning their costs could rise, with a knock-on effect on Russia's struggling economy.

The measures are "a strong warning (that the) illegal annexation of (Crimea) and deliberate destabilisation of a neighbouring sovereign country cannot be accepted in 21st century Europe," said Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council.

If Russia does not change direction, "it will find itself increasingly isolated by its own actions," Van Rompuy said in a statement.

"The European Union will fulfil its obligations to protect and ensure the security of its citizens. And the European Union will stand by its neighbours and partners," the statement added, apparently referring to other ex-Soviet states now EU partners Georgia and Moldova.

The EU however "remains ready to reverse its decisions and re-engage with Russia when it starts contributing actively and without ambiguities to finding a solution," he added.

For months since the crisis broke in November, the EU had restricted itself to so-called 'Phase 2' asset freezes and visa bans on those implicated in or profiting from the Ukraine crisis.

Sanctions 'inevitable'

Debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17

 lies at the crash site in rebel-held east

 Ukraine, on July 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Alexander Khudoteply)

Washington complained such measures were not enough, suggesting that Brussels was being held back by the EU's extensive economic ties with Russia, which supplies a third of the bloc's gas and is a major trade partner.

The loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, however, dramatically changed thinking, even among holdouts such as Germany and Italy, and put broad 'Phase 3' economic sanctions at the top of the EU agenda.

"The decision today was inevitable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement that also urged the Russian leadership to "pursue the path of de-escalation and cooperation" in the Ukraine conflict, warning of further steps if it does not.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said separately that Washington was also "preparing additional sanctions, with Europe," adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "still has a choice" in what course to take in Ukraine.

The EU ambassadors also agreed Tuesday to impose asset freezes and visa bans on four close Putin business associates, the first time the bloc has targeted such figures, with another four people and three companies also targeted.

Details of their names will be made available in the EU's Official Journal, probably Wednesday, with the new sanctions likely to come into force Friday or Saturday once the legal procedures are completed.

Moscow has consistently derided the US and EU sanctions, condemning them as ineffective and counterproductive to shared interests in such key areas as the fight against terrorism.

"I can assure you that we will overcome any difficulties that develop in various sectors of the economy and maybe we will become more independent and confident in our own strength," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

People come out from their houses

 after shelling in Donetsk, on July 29,

 2014 (AFP Photo/Bulent Kilic)

On the other side, British energy giant BP, which owns almost 20 percent of Russian state oil giant Rosneft, warned Tuesday that the new sanctions could seriously damage its interests.

An EU diplomat cautioned that as sanctions increase, Putin may feel he has less to lose and it should not be forgotten the Russian leader has many options.

"He could take military action, he could increase help for the rebels, he could help them bring down Ukraine government planes," the diplomat said.

Fighting by MH17 crash site

Another EU diplomat played down this possibility, saying the bloc's leaders will have taken it into account when they agreed to up the ante with Putin.

"Putin is going to try and divide the Europeans and his response will be a test of the EU's unity," the diplomat said.

Western sanctions in the past have proven controversial, failing to deliver results as quickly as hoped in such cases as Cuba and Zimbabwe, countries that suffered badly but also learned how to get around many of the restrictions.

Heavy shelling was reported Tuesday in eastern Ukraine, forcing international experts to again scrap plans to reach the MH17 crash site.

Ukrainian servicemen sitting atop armored

 personnel carriers travel near the

 eastern city of Slavyansk on July 11, 

2014 (AFP Photo/Genya Savilov)

The remains of some of the 298 victims, who included nearly 200 Dutch, still lie there 12 days after the disaster.

The Ukrainian military said they were not involved in hostilities in the area, charging instead that insurgents were firing on their positions from nearby towns.

Key rebel-held cities further afield came under heavy bombardment, as the government pushed its offensive to regain control of the eastern industrial heartland.

In Donetsk -- the biggest rebel stronghold of a million people just 60 kilometres away from the crash site -- AFP journalists heard several explosions and saw several damaged buildings.

Heavy fighting was also ongoing in another rebel stronghold Lugansk where local authorities reported five killed and eight wounded in the past 24 hours.

More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in the past three months, the United Nations said.

Related Article:

US hits 3 Russian banks with sanctions over Ukraine

Bank of England blasts Lloyds for rigging bailout funding

Taxpayer-owned bank ordered to pay nearly £8m after 'reprehensible and unlawful' manipulation of repo rate – on top of £218m in fines for Libor rigging

The Guardian, Jill Treanor, Monday 28 July 2014

Lloyds Banking Group fined over Libor rigging. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

The Libor-rigging scandal took a new twist on Monday when Lloyds Banking Group faced accusations of unlawful behaviour after being ordered pay compensation to the Bank of England for manipulating the fees it paid for emergency funding during the height of the banking crisis.

In addition to £218m of fines from regulators in the UK and US for rigging the benchmark rate, the 24% taxpayer-owned bank was ordered to pay Threadneedle Street nearly £8m.

The fines imposed on Lloyds cover two main issues – manipulating Libor, for which seven other firms have been punished – and, for the first time, rigging another rate, known as the repo rate. This repo rate was used to calculate the scale of the fees paid to the Bank of England for its special liquidity scheme (SLS) which was created to pump money into the financial system amid fears banks were facing a credit crisis.

The Bank of England said Lloyds' manipulation of the repo rate was "highly reprehensible and clearly unlawful".

As has been the case with other Libor fines – Barclays was the first to be penalised in June 2012 – regulators on both sides of the Atlantic published emails and electronic chats exposing evidence of manipulation. In one exchange, a Lloyds trader remarks when asked about reducing a Libor rate: "every little helps... It's like Tescos".

Unlike other Libor penalties, Lloyds is also paying the Bank of England £7.8m in compensation because of the lower fees being paid for the SLS, which was introduced in April 2008 and closed in January 2012.

In a harshly worded letter, the Bank of England governer Mark Carney said this scheme was intended to help banks get through the worse of the financial crisis as Lloyds TSB rescued HBOS, which owned Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

"Such manipulation is highly reprehensible, clearly unlawful and may amount to criminal conduct on the part of the individuals involved," Carney said.

The Lloyds chairman, Lord Blackwell, replied: "I absolutely share your concern about the nature of the SLS conduct and in particular its implications for reducing fees. This was truly shocking conduct, undertaken when the bank was on a lifeline of public support".

Tracey McDermott, the FCA's director of enforcement and financial crime, said: "The firms were a significant beneficiary of financial assistance from the Bank of England through the SLS. Colluding to benefit the firms at the expense, ultimately, of the UK taxpayer was unacceptable.

"The abuse of the SLS is a novel feature of this case but the underlying conduct and the underlying failings - to identify, mitigate and monitor for obvious risks - are not new. If trust in financial services is to be restored then market participants need to ensure they are learning the lessons from, and avoiding the mistakes of, their peers. Our enforcement actions are an important source of information to help them do this," she said.

The Financial Conduct Authority, which issued fines alongside two US regulators, shows a manager from Bank of Scotland and a trader at Lloyds acknowledging their influence over the repo rate used to price the SLS. "While we've got two votes we should use this to our advantage, you know what I mean?" the Bank of Scotland manager told his colleague in 2009, four months after the two banks merged.

Four individuals at Bank of Scotland and Lloyds were involved in or knew about the repo fixing while 12 were involved in or knew about rigging Libor when priced in sterling, US dollars and Japanese yen, where there was collusion with the Dutch bank Rabobank.

The Libor fine also covers a period when Bank of Scotland was still part of HBOS and as it was being rescued by Lloyds. Bank of Scotland submitters to Libor were given direct instructions to ensure their rates did not appear too high. Submitting a higher rate than rivals may have indicated their bank was in financial distress. An individual at Bank of Scotland responsible for submissions to Libor sent a message to a rival: "I've been pressured by senior management to bring by rates down into line with everyone else". Only days previously, the rate had been half a percentage point higher than rivals.

Libor has been overhauled since the furore caused by the fines on Barclays and others, including Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS. During the period of the offences it was based on submissions from banks at the rate they believed their rivals would charge them to borrow for a number of periods, ranging from overnight to 12 months.

Related Article:

Lloyds suspends seven people after £226m bill for rigging interest rates

Swiss UBS pays millions to Germany in settlement over tax evasion

Swiss banking giant UBS has agreed to pay Germany a hefty fine for its involvement in helping German clients hide money from tax authorities. It's the biggest fine ever paid to the country by a Swiss lender.

Deutsche Welle, 29 July 2014

Zurich-based UBS confirmed Tuesday it had settled investigation charges of aiding German clients suspected of evading taxes.

Switzerland's largest lender agreed with prosecutors in Bochum, Germany, to pay a fine of some 300 million euros ($403 million). The payment will put the case to rest in Germany, but UBS continues to face similar punitive action elsewhere.

The Swiss lender also stands accused of aiding account holders from France and Belgium in hiding their money from domestic tax authorities.

Little impact on earnings

As early as 2009, UBS was able to ward off a trial in the US over its role in helping clients avoid taxes by paying a fine of $780 million in an out-of-court settlement.

Despite continued litigation costs, the lender on Tuesday reported a 15-percent net profit jump in the second quarter, compared to its earnings in the same period a year earlier.

UBS said the hike was driven by strong results from its core wealth management and trimmed-down investment banking franchises.

hg/ng (Reuters, AFP, dpa)

Government Takes First Major Steps Towards UFO Disclosure

Educating Humanity, Wednesday, July 23, 2014 

In an astonishing development NASA and the Library of Congress (US Government) will be holding a symposium in Washington DC Sept 18-20, 2014 to discuss the broad implications of discovering life in the Universe. The main purpose of the event is described as:

"Preparing For Discovery - A Rational Approach of Finding Microbial, Complex, or Intelligent Life Beyond Earth"

This appears to be the first major event sponsored by the United States government to bring mankind one large step closer to the knowledge that we are not alone in the universe. Oddly enough it is open to the public.

Date-Time: September 18 - 19, 2014 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Admission: Free and open to the public

Location: The John W. Kluge Center, Room 119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

Another stated main goal of this event:

The main goal of the Symposium is then described as exploring “how we prepare to face new knowledge that may challenge our very conceptions of life and our place in the universe.”

From Anthropologist to Astrophysicist to the Vatican to SETI, the list of attendees (see below) reads like a Who's Who for UFO and Extraterrestrial Disclosure.

Steven J. Dick will be the host of this special event. He is the 2013-2014 Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress. He has a long history of working for NASA and the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. He is also a noted author whose books have been translated to multiple languages.

Dick's books include: 

• Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the ET Life
• Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century ET Debate
• Many World: The New Universe, ET Life and the Theological Implications
• The Living Universe, NASA and the Development of Astrobiology
• Sky and Ocean Joined: US Navel Observatory 1830-2000

Full List of Participants

Linda Billings - Consultant to NASA’s Astrobiology and Near-Earth Object Programs, Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ

Eric J. Chaisson - Astrophysicist, Harvard University

Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ - Astronomer and meteoriticist at the Vatican Observatory

Iris Fry - Professor, Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University (retired)

Mark Lupisella - Leader, NASA Goddard Advanced Exploration Systems support for Human Exploration

Jane Maienschein - Regents’ Professor, President’s Professor, and Parents Association Professor at Arizona State University

Lori Marino - Neuroscientist and expert in animal behavior and intelligence

Carlos Mariscal - Post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Comparative Genomics & Evolutionary Bioinformatics in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Margaret Race - Senior Scientist at SETI Institute in Mountain View, California

Dirk Schulze-Makuch - Professor in the School of the Environment at Washington State University

Seth Shostak - Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California

John W. Traphagan - Anthropologist and Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Texas at Austin

Douglas Vakoch - Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute

Clément Vidal - Philosopher, co-director of the 'Evo Devo Universe'

Source

Source

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"FUTURE AND PHYSICS (#)" - May 16-17, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) -

(#) New major Discoveries (This channel will become a historical channel in the future, prove that Kryon is a real communication to humanity from the Creative Source) - (Text version Physics) - New

1 To see and measure multi-dimensional/quantum physics, instrument (super coaling quantum plasma lens)

2 Two more laws of multi-dimensional physics revealed: explanation of dark matter & acknowledgement of free energy (controlling mass)

3 God in the atom. God has - provable - part in physics. Intelligent/benevolent design. (Will bring religion and science together.)

4 Human Consciousness is an attribute of physics. (Pleiadians - Humans ancestors / Humans free choice only planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Other galaxies have their own spiritual systems and physics)

5.Coherent DNA. Multidimensional DNA coherent between dimensions will give Enhanced DNA

"Earth, the only planet with free choice in the Milky Way Galaxy"

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" - (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)


"Recalibration of the Universe"– Jan 25, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text Version)

“… The entire galaxy revolves as one plate, in a very counter-intuitive way. The stars and the constellations do not orbit within the rules of Newtonian physics that you are used to seeing all around you in your own solar system. For the stars and clusters in your galaxy, distance from the center does not matter. All the stars rotate as one. This is because the galaxy is entangled with the middle of itself. In that state, there is no time or distance. The change of consciousness on this planet has changed the center of the galaxy. This is because what happens here, dear one, is "known" by the center.

It's interesting to us what your reaction to all this is scientifically. You saw that the "creative event" of your Universe is missing some energy in order for it to have formed as it did. In addition, the unusual way the galaxy rotates, as I just stated, was also noted. So you have calculated that for all this to be in place, there has to be missing 3D matter, and you have given it a name - dark matter. How funny! Did you ever think that there could be a multidimensional effect going on that you now can observe and calculate - that has immense power, but can't be seen? It's not "matter" at all and it's not 3D. It's quantum energy.

Let me tell you something about physics. Yet again, I'll make it simple. Everything your scientists have seen in physics happens in pairs. At the moment, there are four laws of physics in your three-dimensional paradigm. They represent two pairs of energy types. Eventually, there will be six. At the center of your galaxy is what you call a black hole, but it is not a single thing. It is a duality. There is no such thing as "singularity". You might say it's one energy with two parts - a weak and a strong quantum force. And the strangest thing is it knows who you are. It is the creator engine. It's different in other galaxies than this one. It's unique.

The very physics of your galaxy is postured by what you do here. The astronomers can look into the cosmos and they will discover different physics in different galaxies. Could it be that there's something going on in the other galaxies like this one? I'm not going to answer that. … “

Pussy Riot members take Kremlin to European court of human rights

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova demand compensation over their 2012 arrest, trial and imprisonment

The Guardian, Alec Luhn in Moscow, Monday 28 July 2014

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (left) and Maria Alyokhina argue that Russia violated
 four articles of the European human rights convention. Photograph: Don Emmert/
AFP/Getty Images

Two members of the feminist group Pussy Riot are suing the Russian government in the European court of human rights (ECHR) over their imprisonment for a 2012 "punk prayer" protest at a Moscow cathedral.

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who were given an amnesty in December after serving 21 months in prison and pre-trial confinement, are demanding €120,000 (£71,000) each in compensation, plus €10,000 in court fees. They argue that the investigation and prosecution violated their rights and amounted to torture.

"They didn't get fair trial here in Russia so they want to get it finally in the European court of human rights," said Pavel Chikov, the head of the human rights legal group Agora, which is representing the two women.

"Plus they want this case to set a precedent that Russians can speak publicly on sensitive political issues, even if this speech is not supported by majority. This is a case about freedom of expression and fair trial first of all."

Pussy Riot came to the world's attention with their protest on 21 February 2012, when they attempted to perform their song Mother of God, Drive Putin Out in Christ the Saviour cathedral near the Kremlin. Three members of the group were convicted of hooliganism and sentenced to two years in a prison colony in a trial that was widely and sympathetically covered by western media.

The vast majority of Russians, however, were disapproving of Pussy Riot's actions. According to surveys during the trial, 86% of Russians thought its members should be punished. Most favoured a large fine or forced labour.

Yekaterina Samutsevich was given a suspended sentence in October 2012, while Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova served time in far-flung prison colonies, where they went on hunger strike in protest against the harsh conditions they faced. Tolokonnikova also corresponded with the left-wing philosopher Slavoj Žižek in an exchange of letters due to be published in September. They were released in December in what was largely viewed as a gesture of goodwill by the Kremlin before the Sochi Olympics.

The activists, who initiated the complaint in 2012, argue that Russia violated four articles of the European convention on human rights guaranteeing the rights to freedom of expression, liberty and security and a fair trial, and prohibiting torture.

The ECHR's questions to the Russian government on the case earlier this year suggested that the harsh schedule of trial hearings, the glass cage in which the defendants were kept and the heightened security measures could be considered inhumane treatment.

Transport from the court to pre-trial detention took up to four hours, and the women were accompanied by law enforcement officers with dogs at all times.

"People saw them in a glass cage all the time next to police dogs, and the whole thing proved to everyone that they were guilty before they were found guilty by the court," Chikov said. "The practice in Russia where people are put in glass or metal cages in the courtroom has nothing to do with a fair trial and violates the presumption of innocence."

In a 35-page response in June, the Russian government called the complaint "obviously unfounded", arguing that the glass cage is a practice used in other countries and that the imprisonment was a "side-effect" of its desire to protect Russian Orthodox worshippers' freedom of belief.

"Deliberately provocative behaviour in a place that is dedicated to the spiritual needs of believers and is a symbol of the Russian Orthodox community clearly undermines tolerance and cannot be seen as a normal, sincere exercise of the rights of the convention," it said.

Chikov said that he expects to win the suit, after which his clients will seek to overturn their criminal conviction in the Russian courts. Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova have pledged to give any compensation they receive to human rights organisations, including their own group dedicated to prison system reform.